


Christmas Past

by allofthismatters



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, Christmas, Hopeful Ending, Nostalgia, Peace, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-09-11 14:56:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8990275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allofthismatters/pseuds/allofthismatters
Summary: Please enjoy some vague time-traveling, Christmas Carol-inspired Emma angst that wouldn’t get out of my head. I humbly ask you to suspend your disbelief if any of the logistics don’t make sense. Merry Christmas!





	

She’d only just been in her living room, wrapped in a blanket and watching Killian pull together dinner. Emma’s not sure why or how she ended up here, but she knows right away that it’s different than her previous experiences jumping through times and realms. For one thing, she can’t seem to feel any anxiety about this strange turn of events, only a hazy sense of peace and purpose that she can’t quite place. 

Her surroundings are about as familiar and ordinary as can be. The Boston Public Garden is decorated for Christmas and the sight of it steals the breath from her chest, so she indulges herself in a stroll through the busy stretch of greenery that was one of the only constants of her adolescence. Everything is strung with tinsel and garland, Christmas lights dotting the bare willow trees and eager children scurrying ahead of their parents in green velvet dresses and shiny shoes and warm, thick winter coats.

That’s when Emma sees her. The girl on a bench in the corner of the park is a stark contrast to everything around her as she pulls a plaid shirt tighter around her thin frame, as if it will help ward off the cold. Her blonde hair spills over her huddled form and her eyes follow the sight of a happy family with somewhere to go. The longing and exhaustion in the girl’s young eyes is too familiar and too much. Emma swallows hard.

_Me._

She lingers for a moment, watching stranger after stranger walk past her teenage self like she’s nothing, like she’s invisible, like there’s nothing unusual about a poorly-clothed, solitary 14-year-old on a park bench in December. The lump of emotion in her throat grows unbearable; somehow seeing the hopelessness of her young life is different from afar. She lets herself watch and doesn’t bother stopping the tears. She knows what that girl on the bench has been through, knows what she has yet to endure. All of her soul wants to intervene, but she knows she can’t. If she’s learned anything, it’s that the past cannot be tampered with. And her future–her present, really–is too precious. 

But she cries for her anyway, grieves for her, loves her.

She stares at her young self and wonders what she would possibly say to her if she could.

_I know you feel like no one in the world cares about you. But you will have a family, a son who is everything and a mother and a father out there right now who will love you and have always loved you and would have done anything in the world not to have given you up._

_I know you’re freezing. But one day, you’ll have a man who will fight an ice wall and carry you home and never let you be cold again._

_I know right now you sleep on an air mattress in an unfinished basement with a quilt and nothing else. But some day if you don’t have a pillow he’ll pull you into his arms and be one for you._

_He will notice when months of anguish has taken the meat off your bones and cook you hot food until you’re strong again._

_When your dreams in the middle of the night fill you with so much despair and terror that you can’t remember how to breathe, he’ll wake up with you and hold you against his chest to remind you how._

_On those days when you feel worthless, when the demons in your head are vicious, he’ll fight them with a clenched jaw and a fearsome voice close to your ear and remind you exactly who you are._

_You’ll fight sometimes, but it won’t leave you with that sick feeling in your stomach of knowing you’re about to be left alone again._

_Because he’ll never leave._

_Not when you say cruel things._

_Not when you get scared._

_He’ll look at you like you matter, like you’re all that matters and even if you don’t believe him, you’ll let him keep convincing you._

_You’ll have a family and be a family and take care of each other like family does and you’ll be home._

Tears still choking her, Emma stands, drying her face and forcing her shaking legs to carry her down the street and through the doors of the grocery.

She hurries up and down the aisles. There’s not much time.

But this is how it happens. She remembers it happening somehow. It hadn’t made sense to her at the time, but it makes sense now.

Emma buys cereal, peanut butter, protein bars, hot cocoa mix, a sack of instant rice and a bag of apples… She hurries back and stuffs it all into the hollow of a tree she knew so well as teenager, shedding her thick jacket and hat and adding it to the bag… she knows she’ll find it. It’s enough to live on for a bit. Enough for some hope at Christmas and enough to convince her that just maybe, if she can just hold on it will all be worth it some day…

It’s enough to believe in magic a little longer.


End file.
